Psychoanalysis early recognized that every neurotic symptom owes the possibility of its existence to some compromise. It must, therefore, also put to some good account the demands of the ego which manages the repression, it must offer it some advantages by finding for it some useful employment, otherwise it would suffer the same fate as the originally defended impulses. The term “morbid gain” expresses this state of affairs. One might even have been justified in differentiating the primary gain for the ego which must have been active at the origin, from a “secondary” gain which appears in connection with other intentions of the ego, when the symptom is about to assert itself. It has also long been known to analysis that the withdrawal of this morbid gain, or the cessation of the same in consequence of some real change, is one of the mechanisms in the cure of the symptom. On these relationships which can be verified and understood without difficulty, Adler’s theory puts the greatest emphasis. It entirely overlooks the fact that innumerable times the ego makes a virtue out of necessity in submitting to the most undesired symptom forced upon it, because of the use it can make of it, _e. g._, when the ego accepts anxiety as a means of security. Here the ego plays the absurd part of the Pierot in the circus, who, through his gestures, wishes to convey to the spectators the impression that all changes in the menage are taking place at his command. But only the youngest among the spectators believe him. For the second part of Adler’s theory psychoanalysis must stand security as for its own possessions. For it is nothing but psychoanalytic knowledge which the author had from all the sources opened to him during ten years of our joint work, but which he later marked as his own after changing the nomenclature. For instance, I myself consider “security” a better word than “protective measure,” which I used; but cannot find in it any new meaning. Similarly one will find in Adler’s statements a great many long-known features if one will replace the expressions “feigned” (fingiert) fictive and fiction, by the original words “to fancy” and “phantasy.” This identity would be emphasized by psychoanalysis, even if the author had not for many years participated in our common work.